Movie Thoughts: Spellbound (2024)

 

• Released: November 11, 2024
  
• Directed by: Vicky Jenson
• Running time: 1 h 49 min
• Rating 2.5/5

Synopsis

A princess sets out on a quest to transform her parents back from monsters into people.

My Thoughts

Did not have high expectations for this one and yeah, that pretty much rings true. This is by no means a terrible movie, but it's also far from being good. It's just kind of in that awkward "meh" middle ground. 

The story and all were pretty fine and I didn't hate any of the characters (well, except Bolinar, who was annoying as hell), but I just feel that this movie could've been so much more than it is right now.

I also don't like how the movie has a bit of a toxic positivity attitude with pretty much all negativity being seen as a bad thing, when in real life that's obviously not how things work. A little negativity now and then is realistic and necessary, but pretty much all negativity is portrayed as terrible in this movie. "Don't argue, don't feel angry or don't feel sad or you'll turn into a monster". That kind of stuff.

The music, oh no. I've seen some people been positive about the music in this but this is just one of those movies where I really don't like the fact that it's a musical. I didn't like any of the songs in this, at all. They were boring, bland and forgettable at best and obnoxious at worst (see: Bolinar's song). The music in this film just didn't do it for me at all.

Finally, while I don't mind the fact that this movie touches on divorce, I think that this aspect could've been executed better because it wasn't brought up until near the climax that this is why Ellian's parents were fighting so much and turned into monsters. I think this could've been handled a lot better, by sprinkling in hints earlier in the film that the reason the plot was happening was because of the parents wanting a divorce. But nope, it's literally never touched on until the last fifth or so of the movie, which is just too late since this is such a driving force behind the conflict of the movie.

However, as a positive, I will say that this movie does look rather good. It doesn't particularly stand out in any way, but it is still overall visually and animation-wise good-looking.

So yeah, overall just mediocre movie. I genuinely wish it was better because there is some stuff in here that could have worked, had it been executed more competently. But since the final product is rather "meh" I honestly wouldn't recommend this movie. There's other, far better stuff out there to see.